Does your company place a high value on its’ employees?

In this difficult time of recession often times the first response of companies is to lay off staff or to restrict hiring new staff in an effort to cut costs.  Today I want to discuss a concept of value added that may be used in determining whether to cut/freeze staff.  The idea is that instead of just considering the cost of the staff member, one should also look at the value that that person adds to the bottom line.  An example could be a salesman, as long as the sales revenue that the person generates is more than the salary and other related costs of the salesman then it is worth keeping/hiring the person.  In other words we are moving to a system where we measure the benefits to be obtained from the staff versus the costs associated with that staff.  As long as a person can add more than they cost then we should continue hiring.

Now there are some problems with this method because for some persons it is harder to determine what value they add to the organization.  For this reason one should not only consider the qualitative numbers i.e. cost, benefits, etc but also the qualitative factors such as personality, integrity, commitment.  How many times have you called or visited an organization only to be turned off by the reception that you get from the front desk.

Another area could be accounting where it seems that there is no quantitative way of measuring the benefit.  However if the accounts are not in order, the organization could be fined, they will be unable to keep proper track of inventory and receivables and they will be more prone to fraud.

My aim here is not to suggest that this is a perfect measure of employee value but instead to put forward an idea that will make one consider all the costs/benefits that are involved with staff.  The logical conclusion of this method is that the staff that adds more value to the organization should be the one that gets paid more.  This might cause companies to think more carefully before making casual choices regarding their staff.

Feedback question: Does your company place a high value on its’ employees?